Neither the absurdity nor the heterodoxy of ontologism is avoided by the system of Gioberti. The objection of Giobertians to pure ontologism, that it furnishes no dialectic principle uniting natural theology with other branches of special [pg 369] metaphysics and with ontology, is, indeed, well taken. But this only shows that pure ontologism is absurd and incoherent. It does not remove the absurdity of that which is common to pure ontologism and the ontologism of Gioberti. Neither does it remove its heterodoxy. Saying that we have immediate cognition of something which is not God does not make it more orthodox to say that we have immediate cognition of God. Moreover, Gioberti's doctrine, as taught by himself, and understood by his European disciples and admirers, as well as by his acutest and most orthodox opponents, is far more heterodox than that of any other ontologist who is also a Catholic. Evidence has been furnished which has never been rebutted that Gioberti was a pantheist even before he published his Introduction to Philosophy. In a letter to Mazzini, written before that date, but only afterwards published from a motive of pique against him, he says explicitly that he is a pantheist after the manner of Giordano Bruno, though a Christian pantheist. What does this mean, unless it means that he had conceived a plan of combining pantheistic philosophy with the Catholic dogmas, as a part of his grand scheme of reconciling paganism with Christianity, and the European revolution with the Papacy? On this supposition he must either have acted the part of a deliberate liar and hypocrite—a baseness of which we believe him to have been incapable—or he must have intended, and in a subtile manner insinuated pantheism in the guise of his famous ideal formula, Ens creat existentias. In this case whatever may bear a pantheistic interpretation or seem to point to a pantheistic conclusion must be pantheistically interpreted, so far as the sense of the author is concerned. It is not strange, however, that many have understood him in a sense not directly heretical, or even, perhaps, quite compatible with Catholic faith. For his works are filled with passages which, taken in a Catholic sense, are gems of the purest and most precious sort. If the formula Being creates existences be taken in the orthodox sense, as equivalent to God creates the world, it is obviously a directly contrary proposition to any one expressing pantheism. To make it bear a pantheistic sense, definitions of being, create, and existences must be sub-introduced which vitiate its orthodox meaning. But, leaving aside this question, we have already proved that a Catholic must hold that the human intellect cannot have an immediate cognition of the first extreme of the formula, viz., that real and necessary Being which is God. Without this he cannot have an immediate cognition of the creative act, as the act of God, or of created things in their ideas, considered as the divine ideas themselves in the divine mind, and really identical with the divine essence. It is certain that the Holy See did not intend to condemn pantheism in the decree respecting the seven propositions, for it would never have affixed such a mild censure if it had so intended. Ontologism, whether couched in Gioberti's formula or not, is condemned in that sense which is not pantheistic, and under every formula which includes an affirmation of the immediate cognition of God by the human intellect, as defined by M. Fabre in the passage quoted at the beginning of this article.
Before concluding we are obliged reluctantly to add a few words [pg 370] about a personal controversy with Dr. Brownson, with whom we always regret to have a difference respecting any matter which belongs to Catholic doctrine. We desire to explain, therefore, that we made no statement to the effect that the ontologism condemned by the Holy See had ever been formally and explicitly taught in philosophical articles, whether written by himself or any one else, in this magazine. Moreover, in the passage where his name is mentioned there is no direct statement that “his own ontologism” falls under ecclesiastical censure. The utmost implied or asserted is that some educated men might think that some of his statements are “unsound,” philosophically or theologically, and demand a certain benignity of interpretation in order to escape the censure which a professed theologian would justly incur if he made such statements in a book written for school-boys or young pupils. Dr. Brownson's own defence of his doctrine, as based on his definition of intuition: “Intuition is the act of the object, not of the subject,” was cited as the precise distinction between his own doctrine and the one condemned, upon which the question of the theological soundness of his peculiar ontologism turns. We called it “a newly-invented distinction between ideal intuition and perception or cognition,” and qualified the definition above quoted as an “assumption,” which we think is quite correct. It is new in Catholic philosophy, and has not been proved. We think, therefore, that the phraseology of Dr. Brownson makes his doctrine liable to an interpretation, even by educated men, which makes it similar to that of the condemned ontologism. That it is sound and safe we are not prepared to say. Neither do we say positively that it is not. If it is, we think Dr. Brownson can place it in a clearer light than he has yet done, and we shall heartily rejoice to see him distinctly enunciate and vindicate his fundamental doctrine, whether it does or does not accord with that which is held by the disciples of S. Thomas. Of his loyal intention to conform his doctrine to the decisions of the supreme authority in the church there can be no doubt. That he has so far succeeded in doing so, at least by an exact and explicit expression of it, we cannot help doubting. We cannot see that the distinction between ideal intuition and cognition, so far as we apprehend it, suffices.
We understand him to define ideal intuition as an act of God presenting himself to the intellect as its object, and to call the act of the intellect apprehending this ideal object empirical intuition. We understand him also to identify the immediate object on which the active intellect exercises its discursive operations with real, necessary being—i.e. God—although it does not make the judgment that eternal verities are real being, and that real being is God, immediately, but by means of reflection and reasoning. Now, we cannot see any essential difference between this doctrine and that of M. Branchereau and other ontologists. We do not think it possible to escape the ecclesiastical censure on the doctrine of the immediate cognition of God, unless something is placed, ratione objecti visi, between God and the intellect, making the cognition mediate. Moreover, we consider that the term cognition in the Roman decree covers intuition and simple apprehension, even in their confused state, as well [pg 371] as distinct conceptions and judgments. Dr. Brownson's peculiar terminology and informal method of arguing make it, however, more difficult to understand his real doctrine and compare it with that of standard authors than if it were expressed in the usual style and method.
Dr. Brownson has also further charged the author of Problems of the Age with having actually taught in the opening chapters of that essay, as first published in this magazine, the very ontologism condemned in the seven propositions. That there are ambiguous expressions and passages which taken apart from the whole tenor of the argument are liable to such an interpretation, we do not deny. But in reality, it was the doctrine of Gerdil which was intended, and expressed with sufficient distinctness for a careful and critical reader. This doctrine is expressed by the illustrious cardinal in these words: “God, who contains eminently the ideas of all things, impresses their intellectual similitudes in us by his action, which constitute the immediate object of our perceptions.” Upon which Liberatore remarks: “In these words Gerdil did not modify the ontologism which he professed in his youth, but retracted it. And indeed, how can even the shadow of ontologism be said to remain, when the immediate object of our perceptions is no longer said to be God, or ideas existing in God, but only their similitudes, which are impressed by the divine action upon our minds.”[99] A few quotations from the Problems of the Age will prove the truth of our assertion that it proposed a theory similar to the theory of Gerdil.
“It is evident that we have no direct intellectual vision or beholding of God. The soul is separated from him by an infinite and impassable abyss.”[100] “God affirms himself originally to the reason by the creative act, which is first apprehended by the reason[101]through the medium of the sensible.... Thus we know God by creation, and creation comes into the most immediate contact with us on its sensible side.”[102] “The knowledge of God is limited to that which he expresses by the similitude of himself exhibited in the creation.”[103] “It is of the essence of a created spirit that its active intuition or intellective vision is limited to finite objects as its immediate terminus, commensurate to its finite, visual power. It sees God only mediately, as his being and attributes are reflected and imaged in finite things, and therefore its highest contemplation of God is merely abstractive.”[104]
More passages might be quoted, but these may suffice. The form of expression is frequently Giobertian, especially in the early chapters. But the author understood Gioberti in an orthodox sense. In our opinion Dr. Brownson, as well as ourselves, failed to a very great extent to understand his artfully-expressed meaning. We used language similar to that of ontologism, but the sense in which we asserted the intuition of God was that of an infused idea of necessary and eternal truths; having their foundation and eminent, but not entitative existence in God, as Father Kleutgen teaches; by virtue of which the mind can rise by discursive reasoning through the creation to an explicit conception of what God is, and make the judgment [pg 372] that he is. All that introductory part of his work which treats of ontology was, however, suppressed by the author when the Problems of the Age was published in book-form, precisely on account of the tincture of ideas and phraselogy, which too nearly resembled those of ontologists, and were too obscure and ambiguous.
We do not suppose that the ideology of those Catholic philosophers whom we may call Platonisers, for want of a more specific term, has been condemned; or the Peripatetic ideology enjoined as the only one which can safely be taught in the schools; by any positive precept of the Holy See. Nevertheless, we think the former ideology, in all its various shapes, has received a back-handed blow, by the condemnation of ontologism, which must prove fatal to it. We see no logical alternative for those who reject psychologism, except between ontologism and the ideology of S. Thomas. The objective term of intellective conceptions must be, if it has real existence, either in God, in created things outside the mind, or in the mind itself. If it is the latter, a vague idealism which carries philosophy into an abstract world, separated by a chasm from the real, seems unavoidable. There is no real, concrete being, except in God and that which God has created. Unless the universals are mere conceptions or ideas, and unless ideas are, not that by which the intellect perceives, but that which it perceives—and this is psychologism—they must have their entitative existence in the essence of God, and be indistinguishable from it; or they must have it in created objects. The former cannot be safely held and taught. Therefore we must take the latter side of the alternative, or fall into psychologism. There is no solid rational basis, except that of scholastic philosophy, on which we can stand. The master in this school is the Angelic Doctor. Our interpretation, or that of any greater disciple of S. Thomas, has no authority, except that which is intrinsic to the evidence it furnishes that it is really his doctrine. The evidence is clear enough, however, to any competent person who examines it, that we have stated his doctrine correctly, and that all the criticisms upon the ideology we vindicate fall upon S. Thomas, and not upon us. Any one who will read the great works of Kleutgen and Liberatore can see this proved in the amplest manner from the writings of S. Thomas and in his own distinct statements. And any person of ordinary common sense will conclude that a man of the acute intelligence, conscientiousness, and patient application which characterize Father Liberatore, in a lifelong study of the clearest and most lucid author who ever wrote, cannot have failed to understand his philosophical system. Liberatore avowedly confines himself to an exposition of the philosophy of S. Thomas pure and simple. And in his great work, Della Conoscenza Intellettuale, he has given the most ample and lucid exposition of that particular part of it, with a solid refutation of the other principal theories. Kleutgen is more original, and not less erudite, though perhaps not equal to Liberatore in the thorough mastery of the writings of the Angelic Doctor; and he has given a most extensive and complete exposition of scholastic philosophy, accompanied by an exhaustive appreciation of modern systems, in his [pg 373] Philosophie der Vorzeit. It is very well for those who can do so to study S. Thomas for themselves, though even they cannot neglect his commentators. But it is idle to recommend this study to the generality of students in philosophy and theology, as a substitute for the study of the minor approved authors. Dogmatic and moral theology and philosophy are real sciences, as they are taught in the Catholic schools, and they can be and must be learned from text-books and the oral instruction of professors. The presumption is in favor of the books and teachers approved by ecclesiastical authority, that they teach sound doctrine. There cannot be anything more injurious to the interests of ecclesiastical or secular education than to depreciate and undermine their legitimate authority, and thus awaken distrust in the minds of those who must receive their instruction from them, or else undertake the task of instructing themselves. Such an undertaking usually results in a failure which may have disastrous consequences. The greater number follow self-chosen and dangerous guides. The few of superior intelligence and activity of mind; who throw off respect for all authority except that which they recognize as absolutely infallible, or submit to through the worship which they pay to genius and to ideas which have captivated their intellect and imagination; are apt to indulge the futile and dangerous dream of remodelling philosophy and theology. Such have been the leaders of dissension, of heresy, and of apostasy. De Lamennais, St. Cyran, Gioberti, and Döllinger are examples. They began to deviate by breaking away from the common and present sense of the great body of authors in actual use and living teachers of theology. Every one knows where they ended. Similar tendencies and proclivities can be effectually suppressed only by a sound theology and a sound philosophy, together with that spirit called the piety of faith, which goes much beyond a mere submission to absolute and categorical decrees in regard to faith and morals. In conclusion, we venture very earnestly to advise all converts who have finished a liberal education before entering the church, not to study theology without also going through a careful course of philosophy, beginning with text-books such as those of Father Hill and Liberatore.
Reminiscences Of A Tile-Field.
Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen in a grand old group of Gothic towers that was called the Louvre. Nowadays we should call their house a palace, but in those good old times kings built houses to fight in as well as to live in, and their abodes had to do duty at once as palace, fortress, and prison. At the time we speak of this mass of straggling roofs and gables resembled a citadel mounting guard over Paris from the western side, as the Bastile did from the east; but when Francis I. came on the scene, he denounced the barbaric-looking stronghold as a place too like a dungeon for a king to live in, though it did well enough for a hunting-lodge. It was too venerable to be thrown down, and too stern in its original character to bend to any architectural modifications, so he decided to leave it as it was, and build a palace after his own fancy by the side it. He began, accordingly, the florid Italian edifice which now forms the western side of the old Louvre. He did not live to see the work completed; but it was continued by his son, who died soon after it was finished, and left his widow, Catherine de Médicis, in enjoyment of it. But the wily queen, looking to the future, saw that her son would one of these days be reigning in the Louvre, and that it might not suit her to remain his guest; so she set about building a palace for herself, where in due time she might plot and scheme, distil poisons, and light civil wars unmolested by the king's presence or the prying eyes of his court. West of the Louvre, and in the then open country, was a tile-field, which, from the fact of tuiles being manufactured there, was called Les Tuileries. The Médicean sorceress touched the tiles with her wand, and up rose under that magic stroke the stately palace which was to be the centre of so many high and wonderful destinies, and which continued to bear through all changes and vicissitudes its first homely title of Les Tuileries. One life could not suffice for the completion of such a monument, however, and Catherine left it to her three king sons, successively to finish. But already in her own time the tile-field was baptized in blood. From one of its Gothic windows the mother pulled the trigger in the trembling hand of the son which gave the signal for the massacre of S. Bartholomew. Thus in its very cradle did the Tuileries sign itself Haceldama, a field where blood should flow, where princes should sell and be sold, where a king should wrestle with the powers of darkness, and be dragged forth in ignominy to death. The two palaces, hitherto distinct and separate, were united by Charles IX., who erected the long gallery by the river's side. It was not entirely finished when he died, leaving his brothers to make it ready for Henry IV., who is represented as traversing the gallery, leaning on De Guise, the day before Ravaillac's dagger cut short the Béarnais' career.